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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27328927">Beautiful Storm</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlotteemilyanne/pseuds/charlotteemilyanne'>charlotteemilyanne</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>I Medici | Medici: Masters of Florence (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Enemies to Lovers, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Religious Guilt, Tender Sex, a healthy dose of angst but eventually very uplifting, but things work out well, long talks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:54:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,732</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27328927</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/charlotteemilyanne/pseuds/charlotteemilyanne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite their family names and Carlo being a priest, Carlo and Francesco can't seem to resist each other. They have some tough struggles and then they have some pretty big joys.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Carlo di Cosimo de' Medici/Francesco de' Pazzi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Beautiful Storm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>What a crack, what a crack, what a crack, what a mighty crack ship, let's see how it gooooooes :x</p><p>This is set pre-canon, while Francesco is still in Rome before he makes his debut back in Florence in the show</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Holy God, if Thou would answer me - beauty glorifies You, does it not? And therefore, it is good that I should rejoice in it. So how can what he and I do together truly be a sin if I’ve never felt more beautiful than when he holds me?</em>
</p><p>***</p><p>Carlo is walking Clarice back to her home one early evening when he first sees Francesco, although he won’t know the other man’s name for some time. It’s still light enough to see that the man has his face bent over a sheath of papers in his arms as he exits a house on the other side of the street. Carlo can’t see the man’s face as he fiddles with the papers, can only see the waves in his hair. The wind chooses that moment to pick up and the man’s hair blows askew and his cloak flaps rapidly around his legs as he holds tight to the papers and buries his chin over them. Carlo chuckles to himself. The man must look how Noah did on the deck of the Ark when the first storm burst.</p><p>Clarice gasps softly as the wind grasps at her veil and pulls it askew from her hair. Carlo turns to her and shields his arms over her head while she pins the veil back in place. As the wind subsides, she smiles at him and lowers his arm, tucking it into her own. “Thank you, Father.”</p><p>Carlo pats her hand as they continue their stroll. “Small acts of kindness are their own reward.” He tucks a piece of his own hair behind his ear, then remembers the man’s wind-blown waves. He glances across the street.</p><p>Through carriages trundling by and through the gaps other people make as they walk down, across, and over the street, Carlo sees the man again. He’s walking parallel to Carlo and Clarice, making it easy for Carlo to watch his face.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>And oh, what a face it is.</p><p>Cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass and eyes narrowed almost as sharply. “Handsome” isn’t quite a strong enough word. “Striking” is better but still lacks something. “Exquisite” comes close, but still doesn’t quite touch the core essence.</p><p>In the end, words fail Carlo altogether. Feelings are all that he can trust to express his impressions of the man. The feelings include his lungs shaking, making the very breath in his throat throb. His hands tremble, fingers knocking against each other. His stomach clenches and heat radiates from it and rides through his arms and down his backbone. His knees weaken and seem to disappear, so that he may as well be floating, completely untethered from the earth.</p><p>As for his heartbeats, they alternate between seeming too faint and then too heavy, vacillating between feeling as small as a raindrop and then as pounding as a rain shower. Now it is he who is Noah on the deck, having been hit by a wave and left to collect what pieces of himself he can salvage from the shattering impact.</p><p>That is, ultimately, how he feels as his steps slow and the man moves ahead and Carlo has to pick up his pace again. He feels shattered, and like the only way he will feel whole again is if he acknowledges the one feeling in his soul that is bizarre, foreign, frightening, but completely true.</p><p>That feeling is exhilaration at another man’s beauty. This man’s.</p><p>“Father?” Clarice gently squeezes Carlo’s arm. “Are you well? You look pale all of a sudden. Wait - no. Now you look quite flushed. Please say you’re not feeling ill?”</p><p>Carlo wrests his face away from the man and back to Clarice. They weave amongst passersby and he’s thankful that Clarice must focus on their navigation and Carlo can hide the multiple swallows he has to take for his voice to return to him.</p><p>“I’m quite well, thank you for asking. The wind sent a shock through me, that’s all. It happened quite so quickly.”</p><p>“Indeed.” Clarice smooths her rumpled dress as they continue on. “If we have a thunderstorm later, I can say that the angels are dancing. A patient told me that, that the booming sounds are only the angels’ feet as they jump around in Heaven. Isn’t that the loveliest image?”</p><p>Loveliness can be a storm, and so a man can be a storm. A storm you may never dry from.</p><p>It’s a jolting thought. Carlo has no idea who this man is and he’s already imagining that he won’t recover from gazing at him. Still, he gazes.</p><p>The man’s face has a satisfied look on it. Someone uncharitable might say he looks smug. He’s holding the papers with only one hand now, an easy confidence in his relaxed shoulders as he strolls. Men holding sheafs of paper are typically conducting business. Perhaps this man has just concluded a successful transaction of some sort. What does he do for a living? What is he pleased about? Where is he going?</p><p>How much longer will he stay in Carlo’s view?</p><p>“Thank you, Father. I’ll see myself inside. I know you’re due back at the monastery and I don’t want to take up more of your time.”</p><p>Carlo turns to Clarice, smiles, then reflexively turns back to watch the man. A shard of panic hits against the wall of his chest when he realizes that he’s reached Clarice’s home and the man is swiftly passing by on his opposite side of the street. He’s walking, he’s walking, and then he’s gone.</p><p>Carlo can’t bear the idea of watching his back recede completely, so he turns his full attention on Clarice even as his heart beats unevenly. “Please give my regards to your mother,” he says, feeling a twitch in his voice. “She is always in my prayers.”</p><p>Clarice’s eyebrows are knitted slightly but she still smiles at Carlo as she reaches up to kiss his cheek. “Just as you are in ours.”</p><p>Carlo thinks that he manages a smile as he says, “Bless you, Clarice. I will see you at the almshouse tomorrow. May God keep you.”</p><p>When Clarice has disappeared inside the house, Carlo keeps walking forward as darkness begins to color the air and then full night falls. His path takes him all the way to the monastery, where he greets his fellow priests before he takes his evening meal and then retires to his room. He dresses for bed and kneels down to say his prayers. <em>Holy God,</em> he manages to think right before his mind is seized by the image of the man in the street and he feels the storm embrace him again.</p><p>The man is decidedly not Holy God. The man is something else entirely. Carlo can’t say what as he manages his nightly prayers, squeezing them around the man’s presence in his mind.</p><p>When he’s finished and has crossed himself and tucked himself into bed, he thinks what he couldn’t think before.</p><p>
  <em>I want to talk to him. I want to know him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And I want to touch him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>God, did You hear me think that?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>If You did, have I fallen from Your Grace?</em>
</p><p>The terror of the notion makes him grip his blanket in both hands as tears slide from his eyes in hot trails down his cheeks. Crying is exhausting and he falls asleep after the well dries up.</p><p>He dreams of rain soaking sheafs of paper, the words on which he cannot make out, but the hand that holds them is as clear in his mind as if the sun has chosen it specifically to illuminate, and to do so lovingly.</p><p>***</p><p>            One week later, Francesco exits the merchant’s house and onto the street, his sheaf of papers in one hand, his other hand brushing his hair away from his sweaty forehead. Business had been going so well, but it’s taken a turn. This Roman client is the most fussy and ornery he’s yet encountered and Francesco hates that the stress of talking to him makes him sweat. His whole life he has prided himself on being unmoved and unshaken in the face of difficulties. He didn’t have a choice, he supposes – how was he to cope with losing his parents as a child if he hadn’t stared grief in the face and told it, “You will never throw me to the ground”?</p><p>            Sheer willpower can ensure survival. But the application of a fervent mind over obstacles that he deems unfrightening has made him who is he and shaped what he believes.</p><p>            At least, this is what he tells himself when he begins to sweat.</p><p>            But brave men don’t sweat, and if they do, they at least erase the evidence as soon as it appears. Francesco wipes his hand on his cloak as he moves down the side of the street and in the direction of the inn at which he’s staying. He anticipates at least another week of negotiations that he must fit around the merchant’s busy schedule. He’s composing today’s news to write down and send to Jacopo back in Florence when, even over the shuffle of feet on the street and the creak of cart wheels, he hears a melody of a voice.</p><p>            He turns his head.</p><p>            A priest is walking arm in arm with a young woman whose veil trails behind her in the gentle breeze. The priest’s eyes are focused straight ahead as he speaks, in the manner of someone concentrating on telling a story, or maybe reciting something – a biblical passage?</p><p>            Whatever it is he’s talking about, it’s making him smile and his voice raises higher and higher until Francesco can hear the sweetness even though he can’t make out the individual words. It doesn’t much matter that he can’t, though – the loveliness of the priest’s voice is enough to slow Francesco’s steps and then stop him fully in his tracks. A few people mutter at him to <em>get out of the way</em> as they pass him by, but he doesn’t move.</p><p>            The priest and the young woman now move directly in front of Francesco’s view across the street. The priest’s face has a softness to it, a gentle charm, and his smile has the purity of the sun in a cloudless sky. It’s almost as if he hears Francesco’s thought about the sky, as the priest takes that moment to tilt his head back and point up at a flock of birds that’s flapping and quivering across the air from one side of the street to the other. The line of his neck peaks up from beneath his restrictive collar and Francesco sees one bob of his Adam’s apple before he lowers his head again and the previous soft lines of him fall back into place.</p><p>            Francesco stares at him as he and the young woman walk further along and threaten to move out of sight completely if Francesco doesn’t keep up. He starts moving again but they’ve gone too far and he can’t navigate the throng of people who get in his way quickly enough as he attempts to catch up. The best he can eventually do is catch sight of the back of the priest’s head as he leaves the young woman at the steps of a house and then continues on his way. His body turns and Francesco can tell he’s headed for a corner. Francesco slows his steps again and prepares himself for the resigned disappointment he instinctively knows he’ll feel when the priest is completely out of sight. It’s already confusing him enough and he’s not looking forward to examining his feelings when he’s alone again.</p><p>            Technically he <em>is </em>alone right now. He has never technically been<em> with</em> the priest, despite their parallel journeys along the street.</p><p>            The priest is now at the corner.</p><p>            There’s a weight in Francesco’s heartbeat.</p><p>            And then the priest turns his head and meets Francesco’s eyes.</p><p>            Francesco’s heart jumps up from his chest and into his throat. It happens so quickly that the shock of it makes him sway a little and he has to shift his feet to keep his balance. He watches as the priest opens his mouth as if to speak. Francesco strains to hear but the priest closes his mouth and gazes earnestly at him. There’s surprise on his face but also – and it’s hard to tell from this distance but Francesco swears he can see it – a shade of gratefulness in his eyes. He hasn’t moved his body from its stance towards rounding the corner, but he keeps his vision in line with Francesco’s.</p><p>            A number of people walk by and carts roll past, briefly obscuring their views of each other, but when the obstacles are removed, they are still looking at each other. The priest turns his body away from the corner and faces Francesco fully. Francesco shifts his posture to mirror him so that a clear-cut path exists between them.</p><p>            Thoughts race at fever-beat pace through his mind. Should he walk across the street to the priest? Should he wave his hand at him? Would either of those things be outlandish to do since he doesn’t know this man and has no true reason to acknowledge him at all? What makes sense? What doesn’t?</p><p>            His sheaf of papers jostles against his chest as he shakes, once. He watches as the priest seems to hear Francesco’s thoughts again, and begins to hold up a hand to Francesco, fingers spread out like he’ll wave them at any second.</p><p>            Even over the dull roar of the crowd, Francesco can hear his own breathing. If it could be translated into words, it would say <em>Yes. </em>It feels like there is nothing that is not possible in this moment.</p><p>            And then the priest jerks his hand down and his body away as a man – another priest – rounds the corner from the opposite direction and claps the priest on the arm. Francesco takes a step forward, as if he could somehow intervene and draw the priest’s attention back to him, but in a single moment the second priest has whisked the first one around the corner and they’re gone. People and carriages continue to pass by but the spot where the priest stood remains empty.</p><p>            Francesco feels a bead of sweat slowly begin to drip down the back of his neck and he rubs it furiously away, breaking his gaze away from the corner. He rubs his hand on his cloak again as he walks the remaining distance to the inn. Once in his room, he tosses the papers on a table. He does a poor job of it and some of the scatter to the wooden floor but he doesn’t fix them. He falls onto his back on the bed and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes.</p><p>            He’s been attracted to men before. But it’s one more thread of the tapestry of obstacles in life that he rips apart on a regular basis, because he is stronger than the threads that would bind him, that would hold him back from being so untypical and strange.</p><p>            But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t sweat during the process.</p><p>            Being attracted to a priest is new. Francesco is used to accidentally glancing too long at the men of other noble families during mass, then flicking his eyes back to the Bible in his hands and crushing the buds of desire before they can bloom. The truth is, he couldn’t care less about going to mass, but if people didn’t see him, a respectable banker, at services, they’d turn an unfavorable eye on him and his family. More than unfavorable, probably. Hostile, even. The air of worship in the cathedral is stifling to the point of breathlessness but he has to be there. He has to pretend to believe.</p><p>            God is useless to him. Any loving being would show actual love to the world. The world is too full of misery to be loved by a higher power.</p><p>            A priest, though, is a human man. And a man can be loved.</p><p>            It’s getting on dinner time, but he doesn’t go downstairs to the main room to eat. He doesn’t leave his room at all for the rest of the night. He’s not hungry for food. He’s hungry for an answer to the question of why he has assumed that he’s in love, with a man, with a <em>priest</em>, and after only seeing him <em>once. </em>He is a rational man with no patience for this.</p><p>He continues to think and comes up with no answer, and he wonders if sweat has gotten mixed in with his blood, because even when sleeping with the blankets off, it’s too hot, it’s too hot, it’s too hot.</p><p>***</p><p>            Carlo can’t hear what his fellow priest is saying to him as they walk back to the monastery. His friend was heading back to the monastery from an almshouse in the opposite direction. His path had intersected with Carlo’s by chance, and it seemed convenient for them both to head back together.</p><p>            Chance. That’s a funny word.</p><p>            Because there’s really no such thing as it, is there? The future is not set in stone because man has free will, but there is always a purpose to everything that happens to someone, and all surprises are still created by God’s loving hand as He watches His children on earth.</p><p>            So it wasn’t a chance that Carlo had felt in his bones, somehow, <em>somehow</em>, that he should look across the street to see if the beautiful man, who had seemed out of sight, might suddenly appear. This past week, he’s watched the side of the street frequently and as carefully as possible so as not to make Clarice too curious. He reasons that he’s not lying to Clarice, because there’s nothing to lie about. Nothing has happened. The man hasn’t been walking down the street every time he’s looked. And he almost missed the man completely today. So there’s been nothing to tell Clarice, and therefore nothing to lie to her about.</p><p>            But of course he’s been lying to her. Blatant, flagrant lies by not telling her what is happening while he’s in her company. And God knows. God knows he’s lying, and Carlo has to tell Him every day that he doesn’t know what’s happening to him, that he’s trying to understand, that he’ll do anything required of him to stop feeling this way, <em>just give me a sign, Lord, any sign and I’ll obey</em>.</p><p>            He’d almost believed that his prayers had been answered, was ready to sink to his knees in gratitude.</p><p>            And now this.</p><p>            So, as he bids his fellow brother goodnight after eating and retires to his room again, he has so many questions that he feels like they’ll fall out of his mind and into his hands. Why did he feel the need to turn his head and look for the man right at that moment, right before Carlo would have left the street? Why had the man indeed been there? Why, a week later, did Carlo’s heart still swell and his blood still heat to a near boil when he pictured the man in his mind?</p><p>            He will never know this man, and only God knows if he’ll see him again tomorrow, or next week, or ever again.</p><p>             But if it wasn’t chance, does that mean it was meant to be that he even knows this man exists? Can it be a chance that he thinks this man is beautiful? If it’s not a chance, does that mean God doesn’t disapprove of what is happening to him? Does it, indeed, mean that God passes no judgement on him? Even <em>wants</em> him to cross this man’s path?</p><p>            As Carlo finishes his prayers and crawls into bed, he makes a decision. If he sees the man again during the next week, he will not simply stop in his tracks and stare and half-raise a hand in greeting. He will cross the street and talk to the man. The man obviously already knows Carlo is a priest, but Carlo has no idea who the man is, just that he’s a conductor of some kind of business and is well to do, if his clothes are anything to judge by. It’s a small bit of knowledge to have, but he has to try.</p><p>            He wants to try.</p><p>            What does God want?</p><p>            He doesn’t know. </p><p>            He only knows that peace will not come until he and this man finally walk down the same side of the street together. God will watch, but what can Carlo do except keep moving?</p><p>***</p><p>            One week later, Francesco pulls the sheaf of papers into a neat pile as he descends the steps of the merchant’s house, turns, and walks directly into the path of the priest.</p><p>            The priest is standing still and tense, fiddling with his hands, teeth running over his bottom lip before he opens his mouth.</p><p>            “Hello,” he says, and even in that one word, his voice is still a song.</p><p>            “Hello,” Francesco manages, a small rasp in his voice.</p><p>            “I wondered if you would like to talk,” the priest says. He half flaps a hand, licks his lips, takes a breath, and then words seem to elude him as he stares at Francesco with something like desperation in his eyes.</p><p>            “Alright,” says Francesco, clutching his papers in one hand and feeling one of his nails puncture the parchment, he’s grasping it so hard. “I’m staying at an inn just up ahead. We can speak there.”</p><p>            The priest nods, quickly.</p><p>Francesco is not sure how he manages to maneuver to the priest’s side, doesn’t remember doing so as they begin to walk together. Francesco tends to stride but the priest takes short, careful steps, so Francesco tries to match him.</p><p>            They walk in silence. Francesco feels simultaneously rooted strongly in the present and as though he’s traveling a thousand miles away from the world. He doesn’t know what the world looks like from a thousand miles away. Like the night sky? Stars gleaming around his body? His body rooted in the present tingles as he senses the priest’s presence with every step. From the corner of his eye he can see that the priest is gazing straight ahead. Francesco chances a glance at him and the priest turns his head at that precise moment to look at Francesco.</p><p>            They pause for a moment, until people begin to weave around them and mutter <em>don’t just stand there</em>. When they start walking again, they hold each other’s gazes until they both start to run into people, one of whom shoulders roughly past Francesco and one of whom pushes hard enough past the priest to knock him slightly off balance. Francesco reflexively reaches for the priest’s arm, and the priest lets him hold it as he regains his balance. The fabric of his garments is soft and knowing that his bare skin is underneath them makes Francesco feel heat simmer in his stomach. He’s never touched a stranger like this before, not on purpose, and not with care.</p><p>            The stranger is a man.</p><p>            The heat in his stomach flares like a fire that’s just had a fresh log tossed onto it.</p><p>            He lets go of the priest’s arm and they continue onwards. Before Francesco knows it, they’ve reached the inn. They hover at the door.</p><p>            He means to say, <em>Would you like to come inside?</em></p><p>What he actually says is, “Would you please come inside?”</p><p>            His vision swims and the priest’s face wobbles in his view. He hears the priest say, “Yes, that would be quite nice, thank you,” as muffled as if one or both of them are underwater.</p><p>Francesco opens the door and walks through the main room and up the stairs. He pulls the key to the door from his pocket and opens it, holding it open for the priest, who walks slowly and carefully inside. The priest seems to do everything slowly and carefully, but it doesn’t exasperate Francesco. It’s too charming to do that.</p><p>As soon as he shuts the door and realizes that he’s let a stranger, a beautiful strange priest, into his room and is alone with him, he tumbles off a cliff in his mind and hits the ground and feels jarred awake from a deep sleep full of dreams.</p><p>What he means to say is, <em>Who are you?</em></p><p>What he actually says is, “Why are we doing this?”</p><p>The priest stands in the middle of the room as if he is his own island in the sea of confusion both he and Francesco are experiencing. “I would say that I don’t know,” he whispers, “but I do.” There’s a lilt to his voice and it’s beautiful, like a flower bending its head.</p><p>Francesco tosses the papers on the table. Again, he does it poorly and most of them fall to the floor but he doesn’t move to right them. “Why? Tell me. Please. This is irrational.”</p><p>The priest winces, but gestures to Francesco, and then to himself. “I don’t want to give you a sermon. But I will say that I don’t believe in accidents, and I don’t gather that you do, either. I think God made a plan for us. I think we were meant to see each other, and to feel connected.”</p><p>“Connected,” Francesco repeats. “I don’t even know you. You’re a priest. That’s all.”</p><p>“That’s all,” the priest says quietly, then gazes up at the ceiling. “Give me the words,” he whispers, then says nothing for a few moments, as if he were trying to hear a sound and it’s failed him with its silence.</p><p>Then he lowers his head level with Francesco’s again, and reaches out, and grabs his hand. “God can’t answer this for me. But you can. Why me?”</p><p>“I don’t know.” Francesco’s rationality shatters and he grips the priest’s hand back, all the blood in his body racing. “It only seems like the right thing to do. To be with you.”</p><p>“Yes,” says the priest, his voice rising. “Oh, yes. I knew you’d feel the same. I don’t even know you, except that you’re beautiful, and I can’t stop thinking about you, and I asked God if I could keep thinking about you, and I felt no resistance in my heart, and so I know that it’s right that we should meet again and finally know each other. Do you feel the same?”</p><p>“Yes,” whispers Francesco, and traces his thumb across the back of the priest’s hand. “You’re beautiful too. I want to keep talking to you.” This is the most reckless thing he’s ever done in his life. He should be pounding every desire he has into the ground, should be shouting at the priest to <em>never come near me again</em>, should feel horror at himself, should feel shame. But he doesn’t. He feels lifted up into the air and dizzy and spinning and everything feels right.</p><p>He chuckles softly. “Well. If we’re going to talk, I should probably introduce myself. My name is Francesco de’ Pazzi. I’m a banker from Florence. I’m here in Rome for business and I-”</p><p>The priest yanks his hand away from Francesco with such speed that they both wobble in their balance. The priest takes a step away from Francesco, then another, until his back is against the wall. His face is contorted in shock. He looks as if he’s just witnessed a death.</p><p>When he speaks, it’s like there’s a hand grasping his throat, strangling the words. They twist out of his mouth in ragged syllables. “I’m Carlo de’ Medici.”</p><p>For a moment there is no sound in the world and Francesco does not process the words. Then he does, and he feels like a building has collapsed on him, feels like the stars that had surrounded him have exploded in his face and left him breathless and choking on their rough, ugly dust. “You’re <em>Father Carlo</em>?”</p><p>The priest nods and his eyes are completely dilated and so wide they look near to dropping out of his face.</p><p>The shock makes Francesco feel like the whole world is slamming itself repeatedly against him, leaving him scrambling for purchase and finding none. Their entire time together has been a waste. Has been a lie. Has been worse than a lie.</p><p>Has been a <em>stain</em>.</p><p>And now everything is wrong in the world, and broken things pile up around him.</p><p>“Get out,” Francesco whispers, hears the deadly darkness in his voice.</p><p>And he doesn’t have to ask twice. Father Carlo de’ Medici swoops past him and the doors swings behind him and the tramp of feet rapidly descending the stairs sounds loudly until it’s quiet and then gone.</p><p>Francesco falls to his hands and knees and tries not to be sick.</p><p>This is exactly why there is no God. God would never play a joke on him like this. Not after all the misery he’s whipped Francesco with. He would not let Francesco be attracted to men and <em>specifically </em>a man who’s an enemy of his family. It’s too heartless.</p><p>He feels a bead of sweat drip down his temple and he watches it plop onto the floor and soak into the wood.</p><p>There is no God above, but there might be a Devil below.</p><p>***</p><p>            Carlo explains his tears to his fellow brothers by making up a story about a patient at the almshouse having confessed their sins before they died and begging Carlo to pray for their soul and to remember them because no one else in this world will and other such sentimental things that he can think of on the spot. He receives several embraces and many pats on the arm before he wants to scream and he says that he needs to go and pray alone for awhile before dinner. His brothers say that they understand completely.</p><p>            When alone in his room, Carlo sinks against the back of the door and buries his face in his knees. This can’t be real. This can’t be the world he lives in, the world he loves because God created it. This can’t be what happens after weeks of asking God for guidance and meeting no resistance from Him in his soul. Despite the Bible passages that condemn him, Carlo has trusted his instinct, which he believes born from faith, that if he had felt wrong about wanting this man, he would have some sign.</p><p>            This, apparently, is it.</p><p>            His optimism that he could want this man and be unclouded with guilt has been snuffed out after all. Because he didn’t just want another man.</p><p>            He wanted a <em>Pazzi</em>.</p><p>            He can practically hear the gasps of horror and angry shouts from his family. If you <em>had</em> to want another man, if you absolutely <em>had </em>to, why could you not have picked <em>any other man</em> than a <em>godsforsaken Pazzi</em>? All his life, he heard his father and his father’s son and wife and children bemoan the Pazzis as not only their rivals, but their enemies, a family who would stop at nothing to become the premiere bankers in Florence. No matter what it took. Cheating, deception, treachery – they were all possible, and they were all probable. He can hear it all. <em>Jacopo is lying low right now, yes, but if we show the merest sign of weakness, he will strike at us like the serpent he is, fangs sharp and bared. He’s grooming his nephews to be the same way. The threat will grow as the years pass, and if we don’t keep our eyes open, we might be blindsided a hundred times. We will be attacked, if not through physical force, than through lying tongues and calculated deeds meant to draw blood and keep us bleeding. </em></p><p>
  <em>            It is only a matter of time.</em>
</p><p>            Carlo lays down on his bed and curls up, cupping his hands over his ears.</p><p>God isn’t cruel. God can’t be cruel.</p><p>So why does the word <em>cruel</em> keep ringing through his mind?</p><p>“God,” he whispers aloud. “Is this Your sign to me that I am a disgrace? To my family? To <em>You</em>? That the man I can’t wrest from my thoughts no matter how hard I’ve tried is an enemy of my family who would see them all wounded in a heartbeat and not blink? Are You punishing me?” He sits up. “What did I do wrong to deserve this? I know what Your Book says about desires such as mine. I thought that I could surpass the sin if I felt still in Your grace even as I thought about him, about wanting to talk to him, to, yes, help me, touch him. I see that I was wrong. I’ve sinned. I’m a sinner.” He falls back again. “I’m a sinner,” he whispers, heartbeat feeling weak, as if some Pazzi has truly wounded him somehow.</p><p>He curls onto his side and pulls the blanket over his head. If he died right now, he’d deserve it, he thinks miserably. Hate the sin, love the sinner, but the sinner is a man who wanted a man from a rival family. There are some trespasses that must surely be too great for forgiveness. God is great, but even He has His limits.</p><p>So this is how it’s going to be. Carlo is going to lock up his heart against Francesco and God can help him melt down the key to nothingness and scatter it to the wind.</p><p>He doesn’t dream of Hell, for which he breathes a shaky <em>thank you, God</em>, when he rises in the morning. As he makes his way to the dining hall, a brother hails him over. “You have a visitor, Father. I couldn’t quite discern what he wanted, only that he says he knows you and must have words, and very quickly.”</p><p>Carlo already knows who it will be, and once in the courtyard, he says with as much force as his tired spirit can muster, “What. On earth. Do <em>you</em> want?”</p><p>And Francesco, eyes red and puffy as though he hasn’t slept, says, “I owe you an apology. Will God allow you to listen?”</p><p>***</p><p>            “God allows many things. My family, though, has a strict code. I am God’s child, but I am a Medici, as well. And it is with the utmost difficulty that I can believe a Pazzi like you would want to apologize to a Medici like mysel-”</p><p>            “Would you shut up about being a Medici for one second so that I can speak? Even with my Pazzi tongue?”</p><p>            Carlo falls quiet, but Francesco can see the mist of anger in his eyes. “Listen.” He runs a hand over his eyes. “Despite what your Medici family may think of me, I am capable of honor. I-”</p><p>            “That’s incredibly rich.” Carlo’s voice is almost smooth, but the note of frustration is audible. “I may live in Rome, but I regularly receive news from my family in Florence. Most of <em>your </em>family has never had peaceable intentions towards us. Why should I believe you are the first?”</p><p>            It’s a fair question. Francesco is exhausted after a near-sleepless night of wondering why the God that doesn’t exist would lay this curse upon him. In the past, he’s neatly axed his desire towards men, executed it and buried it. But the one time he had begun to feel safe enough to let it live, he’d had to kill it, and with more brutality than usual.</p><p>            Family is everything. Family has bound him to it, and he’s let himself be held fast in its grip with the expectation that this is where he’ll remain for eternity. Because how else could the world be if not one in which you belong to your family? To uphold its codes, to be united with it in the face of enemies?</p><p>            The bank is everything. He’s been taught that the bank is everything. He <em>believes </em>that the bank is everything. The family is the bank. There is no separation. And there is no room for mercy to those who would cross it. Who would openly challenge it.</p><p>            Who would, essentially, be <em>Medicis</em>.</p><p>            But after a night of restlessness and <em>family family family bank bank bank rational rational rational </em>running through he mind, he doesn’t feel better. His sense of righteousness hasn’t survived the blow of finding out that the most beautiful man in the world is a Medici, but Francesco still wants him.</p><p>            This past week, he’s left wisdom by the wayside and peeled away the layer that has always coated him with the sense of <em>You’ll do what’s expected of you.</em></p><p>            He thinks that those words can create a wound. And that a wound needs to be salved and closed and healed.</p><p>            “Listen,” he says again. “I’m sorry I threw you out. I’ve been thinking. Quite a bit.”</p><p>            Carlo crosses his arms. “So have I. And all my thoughts return to the fact that you’d spit at me as soon as you’d take my hand again.”</p><p>            “Will you <em>shut up</em>?” Francesco rounds on him. “You don’t actually know me. You know I’m a Pazzi, yes, but that doesn’t actually count. Not right now.”</p><p>            “Then what counts?”</p><p>            “The fact that I am breaking every single family loyalty I have ever had and probably will ever have just to talk to you because, despite our family’s great, unending feud, I <em>still </em>came here to apologize. God help me, but I did.”</p><p>            Carlo takes a step away from him. “Has God actually helped you?”</p><p>            Francesco opens his mouth, but says nothing.</p><p>            Carlo closes his eyes and nods. “That’s what I thought. Why would you ask His help? You don’t need it. You know what you’re going to do. You always have. You’ll tell me you’re sorry, like an honorable man would. And then your debt will be paid, and we will never speak to each other again. Isn’t that right?”</p><p>            Francesco groans. “No. It’s not.” He sits down on a bench and waits until Carlo sighs and drops his arms and sits at the opposite end so that their arms have no risk of touching.</p><p>            Francesco bows his head. “I’ll be honest with you. This will horrify you, I have no doubt, but God plays no role in my life. But family is everything. If I don’t believe in the first, I must believe in the latter, or else what place do I have in this world? I’m a Pazzi. My family’s birthright is Florence. That birthright has been all but robbed from us by what we’ve perceived as Medici cunning and deceit over the decades. To take back what is owed to us is the path that must be followed to any end. Glory must be won back, even at the cost of scars.</p><p>            “But, I wonder just how scarred my own family has made me. And just how scarred I’ve let myself become because of what I’ve considered my identity. I think a sense of identity can help you thrive, but only if you feel like it sustains you and keeps you safe.</p><p>            “So I’ve begun to wonder if my identity as a Pazzi has actually helped me thrive in this world. Do I have money and security? Yes. A home to return to at the end of the day? Yes. But a sense of peace that I want to talk to a man and would deny myself the opportunity simply because of his name? I am not at peace with that.”</p><p>            He takes a breath. “I won’t blame you if you don’t believe me.”</p><p>            “I believe you.”</p><p>            Francesco jerks his head up and over to Carlo, his heart thrumming. “You do?”</p><p>***</p><p>            “Yes.” Carlo unfolds his hands and gestures at the space between them. “And I’m not horrified that you don’t believe in God. You’re far from the only one. I’m numb to the idea that people don’t, by now. But I see now that you have a different kind of faith. You have a faith in the truth. And that’s worth more than the gold in both our family’s banks.”</p><p>            Carlo would be lying if he said his heart hadn’t hiccupped when Francesco said he didn’t believe in God. Although he’s heard people in the almshouses swear off God at the ends of their lives because a real God wouldn’t let them suffer, it never gets easier.</p><p>            But he’d also be lying if he didn’t feel Francesco’s words about being a Pazzi strike a bell in his heart about being a Medici.</p><p>            And that as this bell had rung, it didn’t feel wrong, and he didn’t feel God’s angry gaze on him. The only feeling he’d had was that Francesco was pouring water into a gap in Carlo’s soul that he didn’t realize he’d been yearning to be filled. But now that it has been filled, he finds that his senses are even-keeled, not wild and off-kilter like a runaway horse as they’d had been when he’d first seen Francesco in the courtyard. He sends up a prayer. <em>God, I need to speak to him of what’s in my heart, and if You judge me, then I will bear it. </em></p><p>Because he will. He’s waded into this tide of his own volition, has let the storm continue to break around him, to drench him with the sensation of the truth. The truth that his desires need to be expressed to Francesco, and their families must bow out of this game. Because this isn’t a game. This is his heart trying to beat.</p><p>He speaks and the calm in his heart keeps his voice steady. “All of my ideas of betraying my own family. I’ve been wrestling with them too. But I see now. How can I betray my family, or, indeed, anyone, when my intentions towards someone are good, and his intentions back to me are good as well? It doesn’t make sense. How can we be enemies if we each want to do well by the other? If we feel some sort of connection and we banish hatred because of it?”</p><p>Francesco traces his eyes up and down Carlo’s face. “That’s indeed what you would call it? A ‘connection’?”</p><p>“Yes. As unlikely as it sounds, as bizarre as its existence seems. But it is there.”</p><p>Francesco shakes his head even as he keeps his eyes on Carlo’s. “You still don’t even know me.”</p><p>Carlo shrugs. “And I suppose you don’t know me either. But you can. If you want to.” He feels himself blush and averts his gaze. “I’m sorry. That was not meant to sound so intimate, but-”</p><p>“Why not?” Francesco turns fully on the bench to face him. “We’ve already held hands. We can speak without touching. Not here, though.” He glances around, then nods his chin toward the path leading back to the street. “Let’s go back to the inn. Can you make some excuse?”</p><p>“Well. I could be headed to the almshouse, yes, I suppo-”</p><p>“Then you have to come. Now.” Francesco wipes his forehead and his fingers come away slightly sheened with sweat. “There’s something I didn’t tell you. I’m leaving Rome tomorrow. If we don’t talk now – if we don’t do <em>anything</em> now – we might not have the chance again. So will you come with me?”</p><p>***</p><p>            Carlo does.</p><p>            They sit on the bed and talk about what feels like everything under the sun. Francesco tells Carlo that he didn’t actually want to be a banker growing up. He didn’t have any particular interest in it until his parents died and he and his brother were sent to live with Jacopo. And then it felt like he had no choice.</p><p>            Carlo tells Francesco that he understands the pressure of family duties, as he himself is expected to speak to the bishops, archbishops, and even the Pope if it will benefit his family somehow. He tells Francesco how he did indeed want to become a priest as a child, that God’s calling was loud but joyous, like beautiful instruments playing and following him, making their music, as he swore his life to the Heavenly Father when he came of age.</p><p>            Francesco marvels that someone so young could have discerned such a calling. Carlo has no explanation, and says as much, and Francesco tells him that he was right to have done what he did, if he truly wanted it.</p><p>            Carlo tells Francesco that there’s no shame in having become a banker like the rest of his family. It’s not in theory a bad thing to follow in the footsteps of those closest to you.</p><p>            Francesco says that he knows this, inherently, but he’s frustrated with himself that he never even considered any other profession.</p><p>            Carlo asks what Francesco would have done, or would do now, if he could have any wish granted.</p><p>            Francesco says that he doesn’t honestly have a profession in mind, but that he’d love to travel. Despite the difficult client he’s working with, Francesco loves Rome. He loves taking a break from familiar Florence to explore every part of Rome, from the houses with their different architecture to the different meals served to the very patterns of the streets that always feel fresh no matter how many times he treads them. He says that he dreams of wandering into France some day, or even being ambitious enough to take a ship to England. But that these dreams are just that: fantasies that play out in his mind and cannot escape from it and into the world.</p><p>            Carlo says that Francesco’s fantasies are still real, no matter how confined to his mind they are. Francesco asks Carlo how he knows what is real and what is not.</p><p>            Carlo doesn’t have an answer immediately. He sits with his hands folded in his lap about a foot away from Francesco on the bed. He twists a ring on his finger and takes a deep breath. What is real? Well, God, of course, but also his own soul, and Francesco’s. Souls speak the language that only you yourself understand. Only you understand what your soul is telling you is right or wrong or unknown. No other soul can understand it for you. And that takes trust in oneself. So much trust. It means having a dialogue back with your soul, and to not be afraid to speak to it, even when you don’t like what it’s telling you. Ultimately, he concludes, that is the only thing he knows that is real.</p><p>            Apart, of course, from Francesco sitting beside him.</p><p>            Francesco gets a small laugh out of this and looks down at Carlo’s hands in his lap. The truth is, he hasn’t been kind to his soul over the years. If the soul speaks the truth, then he’s tried to clip its tongue. And now he will tell Carlo something that terrifies him, but that has never been given actual voice. And if it is to be given voice, then Carlo is the man to whom he can most safely entrust it to, like a dove placed in Carlo’s hands.</p><p>            Men are beautiful.</p><p>            They are so, <em>so </em>beautiful. Francesco has scorned this thought, tried to set it aflame, dragged it kicking and screaming from his brain and into the void of willful ignorance. But it never stays in the void for long. One gaze at a handsome man on the street and it rushes back into his mind as if it’s never left, because it never truly has. Francesco has wanted men so badly, has wanted to take off their clothes and caress their skin. He doesn’t even know how he contains enough space inside himself to hold all that wanting. It’s so big, it makes him feel like banging his fists against a wall until he bloodies his hands. Because he knows nothing will ever come of it. He will never find a man to love who will love him back. It’s hopeless.</p><p>            Carlo is silent as he waits for Francesco to brush away the tears that have squeezed from his eyes, to squash the hitch in his breath. Then Carlo asks Francesco to look at him.</p><p>            Francesco does, and Carlo gently, ever so gently, closes the foot between them and lays his hand on top of Francesco’s.</p><p>            Francesco is not alone, Carlo says. Carlo has grappled with the same feelings since he was a teenager. Being among so many men in a monastery – it’s a trial when you keep seeing the same beautiful faces every day. A trial where he knows he’d be in the dock with all eyes of the jury filled with hatred at him. And that’s terrifying. It’s kept him awake at nights, made his breathing short and shallow, nearly made him sick. It’s a special kind of cross to bear. It seems wrong to say that he bears a cross as though he were similar to our Lord Jesus. But that’s what the weight feels like, carried like heavy wooden beams ready to break his whole spirit down.</p><p>            Francesco moves his hand under Carlo’s and Carlo is afraid for one moment that Francesco will retract it. But he only flips it over so that they’re holding hands properly. Francesco squeezes their hands together. Carlo squeezes back.</p><p>            The truth is, Francesco says, is that before he has to leave in the morning, he’d like nothing more than to kiss and touch Carlo and show him all manner of love. Their family names can be obliterated right now. If God is watching, then He can strike Francesco with lightning if He wants. Because if nothing else, Francesco has told Carlo that he wants him, and he’s still alive, so God can’t be <em>that </em>upset.</p><p>            Carlo laughs and then weeps. Francesco blots the tears from his eyes with his fingers as Carlo buries his face into Francesco’s shoulder and waits out the flood. When it’s dried up, he moves his face close to Francesco’s and Francesco takes Carlo’s face in both his hands. He kisses his cheeks, then his forehead, then his eyelids. Then he tilts Carlo’s head to one side, a delicate gesture, as if made like the surface of a butterfly’s wing, and he kisses Carlo’s lips.</p><p>***</p><p>            They’ve neither of them ever kissed anyone before, but they quickly become addicted to kissing. Kissing against lips so fast that the kisses miss the lips altogether and land on the side of the mouth, on the jaw, and eventually the neck. Francesco falls back on the bed and pulls Carlo down with him. The feeling of their entire bodies touching is like transcendence. Eventually they need to sit back up again to begin the process of removing their clothes. Carlo starts on Francesco first, unlacing and pulling his shirt over his head. Then he touches Francesco’s chest with only the tips of his fingers, as if he cannot rush these moments, cannot take Francesco’s unclothed body into his arms too quickly lest the wonder of the newness fade too fast. Francesco’s eyes fall closed and he breathes heavily because even the soft sensation of another man’s fingers on his skin is more than he could ever have painted into his wildest dreams of loving men.</p><p>            Carlo relishes the softness of Francesco’s skin, traces lines up his arms and along his shoulders. Then he leans back and raises his arms and Francesco doesn’t need to be told in words to pull Carlo’s priestly garments over his head and then the shirt underneath. Now Francesco touches Carlo’s chest, pressing his palms against it and stroking them down to Carlo’s waist, then back up again. He lays one hand over Carlo’s heart and Carlo lays his own hand on top of it, bowing his head. Francesco leans in and kisses Carlo’s hair, gently bumping his neck against Carlo’s.</p><p>            And that’s all it takes for Carlo to shake free of Francesco’s hands and throw his arms around Francesco’s back, running his hands wildly over it and kissing into the place where his neck meets his shoulder. He hears himself gasping and doesn’t even try to stifle the sounds as Francesco licks a line down Carlo’s neck and traces another line with his finger down Carlo’s backbone.</p><p>            They’re sitting next to each other, bodies turned to face each other, but it’s not enough. Carlo doesn’t truly understand how he knows what to do next, but in mere moments he’s straddled Francesco’s hips and taken his face in both of his hands as he kisses him. Francesco holds Carlo by the lower back to balance them. Carlo digs his heels into the floor without thinking and it moves his hips closer to Francesco’s. It feels so good that he sobs again, but happily, an ache spreading and growing and the likes of which he’s never known and immediately never wants to stop knowing.</p><p>            When Francesco feels Carlo’s hips move against his own, he groans and tilts his entire neck back unthinkingly. Carlo swoops in and places kisses on the exposed skin and they both begin to rock against each other. Vague thoughts like <em>Is this truly happening because I don’t get this lucky</em> run in circles through Francesco’s mind but they quiet when he remembers what Carlo said about the soul’s feelings being real. His body is being nourished right now, yes, but his soul is also completely exposed to Carlo, is vulnerable to any movement he might make, physical or emotional. But he knows he has nothing to be afraid of. Because he knows Carlo will take care of him as if his life depended upon it.</p><p>            Carlo’s thoughts run to God for a brief time, about how he can’t possibly be sinning because he feels so beautiful in Francesco’s arms and beauty is to be worshipped and held fast and precious by all who experience it. Eventually the thoughts of God subside. Carlo and Francesco have started in on unlacing their trousers now, pulling them off their legs and kicking them away, laughing and then sighing at what they can now see and touch.</p><p>            Evening is beginning to settle over the air and the sky is beginning to fade. Neither of them had any idea they had been together all day, talking and laughing and loving. They’re now lying back on the bed together, one of their bodies sometimes flush on top of the other’s, then sometimes facing each other with foreheads touching. There is so much skin to touch, there are so many places to kiss, there are so many ways to find pleasure. They don’t either of them really know how to start, but they try this and that and all of it feels wondrous so they stop worrying and start <em>feeling</em> instead. Feeling the physical touches, feeling the jittery excitements in their hearts and pulses, feeling in their bones that this is the right thing to do. Everything else means nothing right now.</p><p>            Eventually they figure out how to give each other the most pleasure and they cling to each other as hips thrust and voices half-shout and pinnacles are reached and minds go blank except for pure, unadulterated ecstasy, joy blooming, heightening, reached fully, and breaking gloriously as chests heave. They lock eyes as they try to calm themselves, which isn’t easy for two men who have been lacking this experience with another man and have been trying to will it into existence, consciously or not. It’s not easy, and it’s the best kind of <em>not easy </em>that either of them could ask for. They both end up crying again, tucked in each other’s arms as they settle back against the pillows, legs tangled together and fingers tracing down arms and chests again. Neither of them ever bothered to halt their touching and light a candle so they’re submerged in darkness but for the faint shine of lights from the street that faintly illuminate the window. So they touch without a sense of location until a finger lands on a jaw or a hipbone and then there are quiet laughs and whispered words of <em>How do you feel? </em>and <em>This is what I’ve been waiting for.</em></p><p>            Love has happened. They will never have to wait any longer.</p><p>***</p><p>            Francesco pulls Carlo’s garment over his head again and Carlo ties up the laces of Francesco’s shirt. They can only estimate the time but it is highly likely past when Carlo would typically be expected back at the monastery. He has to leave.</p><p>            They steal moments away from that time and kiss more, wrapped tightly in each other’s arms. When they break apart, Francesco keeps their foreheads pressed together. “Where is God right now?” he asks quietly.</p><p>            “In His Heaven, and not arguing with me.” Carlo strokes Francesco’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. He knows it, and He’s not sowing any seeds of doubt in my mind. And what about our families?”</p><p>            “They’re saying what they like about each other. Thinking what they like. They claim us, but they can’t control us. Only we can do that. We have a choice.”</p><p>            “And we chose. I chose you. No matter what hand God had in it, I made the decision to be with you.”</p><p>            “I hope your God understands. But if He doesn’t, you can always believe that I understand.”</p><p>            “I’ll count on it.”</p><p>            “I know we can’t write to each other. And I don’t know when I’ll be in Rome again. Likely not any time soon. Truly, I have no idea when.”</p><p>            “I know. I have to accept that.”</p><p>            “I’d have it any other way. I’d stay here.”</p><p>            “I know.”</p><p>            “I’d love you every day.”</p><p>            “I’d love you every night.”</p><p>            They laugh, and then one more kiss, and then hands slowly dragged apart, and then Francesco grabs Carlo’s hand once more and kisses it and then yet one more kiss on the lips and then Carlo is stifling his sobs as he closes the door on Francesco.</p><p>***</p><p>            Francesco sits down on the bed in the darkness. He doesn’t want to light a candle because he doesn’t want to alter the view of the dark that he and Carlo have just shared. He can still smell the sweat from their skin. He holds his hands to his nose and breathes in as deeply as he can. Then he lies back and takes the pillow Carlo had lain his head on and pulls it closely against his chest.</p><p>            In the span of a few weeks, he’s essentially repudiated his family’s name, disregarded the name of his supposed mortal enemy’s family, and broken a priest’s vows of celibacy and not loving other men. Part of him is shaken by how quickly things progressed. Part of him wonders how he’ll feel when he’s on the doorstep of the Pazzi palazzo again and what his first words to Jacopo will be. Part of him wonders if he’ll eventually settle smoothly into life how it used to be.</p><p>            He doesn’t lash this part of himself. He soothes it instead, tells it that it’s alright that it exists, that it’s only natural.</p><p>            But he also tells it that the larger part of himself feels like it’s been bathed in light, cleansed, washed free of the grime of doubt and self-punishment. Transformed into food for his achingly hungry core that’s never been fed with the knowledge that if you seize what feels right to share with another person and with yourself, you don’t have to wait for miracles any more. You’ve sprung all the traps of sorrow and set yourself free, cutting the vines of shame away from your body.</p><p>And Carlo. What a soul to call out to him, what a jewel of a man, what a force of nature. Francesco won’t think of any man in the same way he thinks of Carlo. This is not an experience he’ll ever have again, the first giving of himself to a man. And he’s so proud it was Carlo he trusted himself with. He’s so happy that both of their instincts chose the others to stir, to startle into joy, into a feeling of belonging to each other. Of belonging to the world after so many years and so many tears. How could he ask for more? He knows that Carlo would give him more if he could. But what he’s been given is enough. What melody Carlo has sung for him is safe inside him, tucked beneath his ribs, crooning in his heart that soars.</p><p>            For all the pain of leaving tomorrow, he could dance right now because of what he and Carlo have done. And he deserves to.</p><p>***</p><p>            Carlo walks Clarice home the next early evening. They pass the merchant’s house across the street and see the carriage waiting outside the door. Carlo doesn’t even think before he stops, and waits, and watches.</p><p>            The house door opens and Francesco descends the steps, papers tucked against his chest. Before reaching to open the carriage door, he looks up and over and meets Carlo’s eyes.</p><p>            Carlo raises his hand, and Francesco raises his. Carlo touches his fingers to his lips, and Francesco does the same with his. When Francesco lowers them, there’s pain in his eyes and he looks on the verge of tears. Then Carlo sees him swallow, and smile. He mouths something. Carlo touches his ear, gesturing <em>I didn’t hear you</em>. Francesco pushes his papers under one arm and cups his hands around his mouth so that the sound carries.</p><p>            “Love every day,” he calls.</p><p>            Carlo cups his hands around his mouth and calls back, “Love every night.”</p><p>            Francesco laughs, and lays his hand over his heart, and then he steps into the carriage and it rolls away.</p><p>            Tears slip down Carlo’s cheeks and he doesn’t try to hide them. Clarice passes him a handkerchief and Carlo wipes his face, then smiles at her. “Thank you.” He pauses, considers. “You know everything, I take it?”</p><p>            “I think that I do.” Clarice folds her arm into Carlo’s. “You can’t be subtle, Father, when you turn your head to another man that much, or do so to look for him every day. And when a man calls ‘love’ to you from across a street, there is little mystery left.”</p><p>            Carlo nods. “Do you still want to know me?”</p><p>            Clarice leans into his shoulder. “Of course I do. I know what words are written, but I also know they don’t translate to the whole of a person’s life. You can love God and live outside certain words. When words don’t apply to you, you must live by the ones that do. And they can include this love you have had.”</p><p>            Carlo knuckles another tear out of his eye and leans back into Clarice’s shoulder. “Bless you, Clarice. Bless you.”</p><p>            “You are blessed,” she tells him into an embrace as they reach her home. “You are filled with grace.” She touches his cheek and smiles. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Cherish whatever you feel for him.”</p><p>            “I will. I do.”</p><p>            As soon as the door closes on her, the wind chooses that moment to pick up. Carlo remembers vividly how he compared his attraction to Francesco as being hit by a storm. A beautiful storm. A storm, he knows now, is a chaos of freedom. He might never get his breath back, but the water is breaking around him because he’s choosing to stand in its path, choosing to be drenched to the bone in longing and, now, of fulfillment.</p><p>            As he tucks himself into bed, he prays to God. <em>I ignored my family’s name, and his family’s, too. I accepted the fact that he was a man. I did nothing wrong. I love You, but I need You to know that I treasure what he and I did. If You are silent with me, I cannot change that. I can only continue to say that I love You, and that for the rest of my days, he will be a sanctuary to my sense of peace. </em></p><p>
  <em>            He is my beautiful storm. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>            Please keep me alive as long as possible. I want years and years of remembering how it felt to be safe in his tempest. Even if I never see him again. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>            I will remember every moment.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>            Let me have a lifetime of remembrance.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>            It’s all I ask.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>            Please.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>           </p><p> </p><p>           </p><p>           </p><p>           </p><p>             </p><p>           </p>
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